One Last Thing Before I Go

bit louder than he intended. Even the boys are staring at him.
    “What?” Chuck says.
    “Don’t do it.”
    “Don’t do what?”
    “Whatever this is. Don’t do it.”
    Chuck’s face turns red and he looks over at their father, not sure how to respond. Ruben sighs and puts down his fork. He has spent years counseling families, saying the things people generally find too difficult to say to one another, and for the first time, Silver considers the courage it must take to walk into the emotional minefields of other families, and what sort of toll that takes on a man. His father sits back in his chair, pausing, like he does sometimes in the middle of a sermon, to gather his thoughts, or his energy.
    “This is a difficult time for you, Silver,” he says. “It’s a difficult time for our family. We’re all here because we want to understand, we want to help, the same way I know you’d want to help if one of us needed it.”
    Silver pushes back his chair and stands. “I can’t do this right now.”
    “Come on,” Elaine says. “Sit down. We’re not going to bite.”
    “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—”
    “SIT THE HELL DOWN!” his father shouts, bringing his fist crashing down on the table. Everyone jumps in their seats, and the baby starts to cry. Ruby jumps up to grab the baby, and Silver sits down. Denise, back in from the kitchen, sits down in her chair. Beneath the table, she reaches for Silver’s hand, clutching it hard against his thigh. They all stare at Ruben, who sits in his seat, fists clenched.
    Silver was suspended for cheating on a test in the seventh grade, then again in high school for smoking a joint in the boys’ gym shower. He stole the car keys and backed his father’s Lincoln through the garage door two years before he was old enough to drive. Once, when he was sixteen, he called God a sick fuck, right to his father’s face. And he has never heard him raise his voice like he just did. None of them has, and, even now, Ruben is still trembling from the effort. The dining room acquires a weighted silence, like the silence just before the firing squad fires. Ruben offers a thin, unhappy smile, a tacit acknowledgment of sorts that this just got real.
    “I love you,” Ruben continues. “But you’re being selfish. And cruel. We are your family, and if you’re so determined to die, then goddammit, you’re going to treat us better than this before you do.”
    His hand on the table still trembles, causing the knife beside it to vibrate, glinting in the light from the crystal chandelier. Silver closes his right eye and can make out just that tiny crescent of light, waxing and waning in a sea of darkness. When he opens his good eye, the room swims a little before coming back into focus.
    Ruben looks over to Elaine, signaling for her to speak.
    “I love you, Silver,” Elaine says, her voice strangely formal even as it quivers with emotion. “I have loved you from the day you were born. And not once, not when you were off with your band instead of taking care of your family, not when you and Denise were divorced, not when your father and I were spending weekends with Casey because you were off doing God-knows-what instead of being a father—not once did I judge you, not once did I tell you that you were being thoughtless or selfish. And maybe I should have. I don’t know. I was just trying to keep you close, so that when you did try to find your way back, you’d still be able to. But now, now I’m going to tell you what I think, and so is your father and Chuck and Denise and Casey and everyone here who somehow manages to love you in spite of you. We’re going to tell you and you’re going to listen.” Her voice is cracking, but she finishes with a defiant nod before sitting down.
    Ruben places his hand over hers, nodding his approval, then looks over at Chuck. “Why don’t you say something now.”
    Chuck turns to look at Silver, offering a sheepish half-smile as he clears his throat. “We were once close,” he says. “I don’t know what happened. It’s like, you moved into that building and you just disappeared. You used to come by for dinner after you got divorced. You’d just show up while we were eating and pull up a chair and talk to the kids and make them laugh. They loved having you around. Then we’d have some beers on the deck, talk about stuff. Do you even remember that?”
    Now that he says it, Silver does. But until this moment, he